Jimmy Graham Felt Unwanted, Unloved, Hopeless, Until A . . .

Savior Appeared

Guardian Angel Steers Um Freshman Toward A Bright Future.

Yes, that's what it felt like, Jimmy Graham recalls. No hope, love or future. Scuffling for a dime and struggling for scraps at the age of 13.

He talks of this prior life with little emotion, as if he's talking about another unfortunate soul who fought the very battle he did.

"The odds are against you," says the University of Miami freshman basketball player. "No one is on your side."

Kids don't believe in miracles when they're walking into a foster home with their belongings in a black garbage bag. They don't believe in hope when they're failing in school, feeling unwanted at home and can't remember the last person who hugged them.

Jimmy Graham was living such a life in Goldsboro, N.C. And just when he was about to give up -- at a time he couldn't tell the difference between an angel and a ghost -- he met his savior. Her name was Becky Vinson, 25 at the time and a single mother trying to raise a 5-year-old daughter while attending nursing school, whom Graham met at a house church meeting.

"I went because there was free food," Graham recalled.

And so begins Jimmy Graham's reclamation, the story of a kid rescued from neglect by a woman who didn't want another child to slip into indifference. "I didn't want Jimmy to become a statistic," Vinson says of the boy she would adopt.

And all Jimmy Graham wanted was someone to listen.

"I've been through some bitterness," he says.

Graham, now 6 feet 8 and 250 pounds, runs through his history so quickly it seems he's still trying to escape it. Born in Lillington, N.C., Graham said he never knew his biological father who was "kicked out of the house before I was one," and he spent hardly any time with his mother.

Before meeting Vinson, Graham already had spent seven months in foster care. "Honestly the worst part of my life," he said. "I had to fight for something to eat. All my clothes were in a black garbage bag. I cried myself to sleep."

While he showed some enthusiasm for football at Eastern Wayne High School, Graham had little interest in anything but surviving at home. His bed was an army cot, and his belongings were stuffed in a shoebox. His grades were crashing with a report card reading four Fs and a 19 in keyboarding.

Then a classmate offered an invitation to attend a home church meeting. And there was Becky Vinson.

A FRIENDSHIP FORMS

It was a Monday night, Vinson recalled, and in walked 14-year-old Jimmy Graham.

"I remember when he first started coming he made an impression," said Vinson, who was working the third shift as a nurse's aid. "When we talked about things, he would argue about anything. He asked good questions, but he was so wearing to be around as a person. I took it as him being a middle school kid, but there was more to come."

Graham liked the food and company and returned the following week and the one after that. Vinson would drive him home -- a 10-minute ride that turned into 20 or 30 when Graham would stop at a local convenience store for snacks or a soda -- and got Graham to open up about his past and his failing grades.

"That was very hard for me because I never opened up to anyone when I was a little kid," Graham said. "I didn't care about anyone. I was very protective. I had a lot of people who ran over me, used me. By that age, I was smart enough to not let it happen again. And [Vinson] was asking some questions that were very penetrating questions about how I was feeling."

Vinson, 11 years older, believes she developed Graham's trust and friendship because they had a common bond. "I had a bad childhood, too, and I believe he had someone who understood him," she said. "I think that bond made him more free to talk about things."

Not wanting to go home, Graham would spend every evening at Vinson's home, eating dinner and staying late.

"It wasn't like I was trying to harbor someone's kid," Vinson said. "He'd come eat and absolutely didn't want to go home. I've never seen that kind of relationship between Jimmy and his mother. It was almost like he was her roommate. Honest to God, in the winter, Jimmy would come to the house in shorts and knee socks. He only had three sets of clothes and one pair of pants. He had holes in his shoes."

But Vinson's main concern was Graham's report card the second semester of his freshman year. "She erupted," Graham recalled. "I never had someone go off on me like that. I never had an older person demand anything of me. I was like, `Who is she? I don't even know this lady.' But she sat me down and told me I was better than that. That I had potential. That I could come back."

Vinson made sure he did. Before school, during lunch and after school, Vinson would stay with Graham to make sure he studied.

"She was so determined," Graham recalled. "She pushed me even though it was tough on her. She was poor, hard up for money, had a little kid and was trying to get through college. But I saw her, and I was inspired. I never had someone commit to me like that."